


In the Pre-Dawn Light

by seenonlyfromadistance



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Vampire, M/M, anno dracula au, vampire nonsense
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-04
Updated: 2014-01-04
Packaged: 2018-01-07 09:34:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,630
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1118321
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seenonlyfromadistance/pseuds/seenonlyfromadistance
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Moran is dying, and Jim won't let him. Not when there are other options. (vampire au nonsense)</p>
            </blockquote>





	In the Pre-Dawn Light

**Author's Note:**

> Okay. So. I once read Kim Newman's _Anno Dracula_ , which features an alternate history/literature where Dracula isn't defeated (as in Stoker's novel), and instead marries Queen Victoria and then vampires become prevalent in London. This is cool enough, but then Moriarty and Moran popped up as classy vampire villains and I couldn't help myself. So this fic is... not set in that world, because it's set in the modern world of _Sherlock_ , but like, imagine that there are lots of vampires running publicly around London. I've also used some of Newman's vampire terminology in this. I think also a little True Blood terminology too. #awkward

He dies.

One of their shitty business associates jabs him in the shoulder with a needle, and next thing he knows he's seeing fog and he's on the ground.

Jim drags him home, by which time he's gurgling incoherently and occasionally dry heaving. The poison rushes through him; he can feel it burning it's way through his blood stream. Jim helps him out of his trousers and puts him in bed. Sebastian can hardly keep his eyes open, yet simultaneously his heart is pounding so fast it feels like it might burst in his chest. The bed is warm and soft and nice... and Sebastian realizes, somehow, through the fog, that he can only think in monosyllables.

"Jim," he groans, writhing to find a comfortable spot.

"Don't worry, dear," Jim whispers to him, "I'm going to figure out what they gave you and I'm going to make all this better." He plants light kisses all over Sebastian's face and hands. "I'm going to figure out what they gave you, and make an antidote, and you're going to be fine." He pets Sebastian's hair and gets to work at finding a solution, taking blood samples and doing experiments in the kitchen while Sebastian wallows in and out of consciousness for two days.

But despite his immense knowledge of chemistry, and despite his hard work, Jim doesn't figure it out. He gives Sebastian injection after injection after injection, but none of them help. Some of them make him feel worse. Sebastian groans to be taken to a hospital, but Jim ignores him.

"It's going to be fine, Seb," Jim breathes against his ear with a slight tremble. The sound of emotion stirs Sebastian's mostly incoherent mind. It scares him. All this feeling and tenderness from Jim is unfamiliar and honestly, it makes him uncomfortable. He could understand Jim when he was an inhuman, calculating machine. He doesn't understand this all too human man who wavers now before him, through his increasingly fogged vision. "I'm going to call in a favor. I'm going to get you a procedure. I'm not going to let you go."

Sebastian is hardly conscious by the time Jim calls in his contacts with the vampires. He's held on a long time, and now he's tired.

The world has been changing, but Jim had always carefully avoided the undead which were slowly filling the streets of London. He wasn't comfortable working with the pale, dead creatures, despite his own veneer of inhuman coldness. Many of their associates had turned long ago, but Jim had held out. He'd always treasured his heartbeat. Until now. Until it seemed like he might loose Sebastian Moran, his only friend, his dearest lover, to coldness and silence forever. Then the option of being undead didn't seem too bad.

A woman arrives one evening, just after sunset. She's thin and ephemeral, but not unattractive. Not like Jim would notice though. He guides her into the bedroom, where Sebastian is pale and breathing thinly, on his last legs, hardly alive anymore. The woman gives a shudder of disgust at the writhing, sweating, living thing. She's old, Jim will later tell him, from a good bloodline. Nothing but the best for his Sebastian Moran.

Later, he'll wonder if she knew she might die from ingesting his poisoned blood. He wonders if Jim knew that the procedure might not work.

But they don't have time to worry, because dead blood from his corpse is more dangerous than poisoned blood, and Sebastian is very close to dead. The woman sits on the bed next to him, her weight hardly making a dent in the blankets. She lifts him up into her arms with almost no effort at all, and with one last confirming glance at Jim, she bites down.

It hurts and stings and is utterly invigorating. His eyes shoot open and he gasps out a scream. He groans. It hurts. It hurts a lot. His fingers tense and reach and attempt to claw at the woman's back, and Jim is suddenly at his side and holding his hands so can't inflict any damage. Even in his weakened state, he could probably dig into her back hard enough to hurt. The pain begins to ebb away and is replaced with heavy limbs, weakness and a dizzy exhaustion. The woman drops him and he collapses back onto the bed.

Jim is still holding his hand.

Then there's something luke-warm and wet and sickly at his lips. He tries to wriggle away from it, but there are hands on his head and on his chin, and he tastes copper on his tongue. His neck hurts and there's blood trickling into his mouth. He doesn't want it. It's bitter. Jim is speaking to him, telling him to drink it; the low tones of his voice cut through the fog and Sebastian follows his orders, like always.

After one tentative swipe of his tongue and a swallow, something changes in him, and he finds himself sucking at the woman's offered wrist. Eventually she wrenches her arm from his grasp, though something new in him wants more. He's always had a blood-lust, but this is something else entirely.

He's only partially aware of the woman standing at his bedside with Jim, explaining how the procedure works and what should happen next, if everything went well. Jim's fingers pull at threads on the blankets and once the woman is gone, they trace over Sebastian's blood stained features.

Sebastian Moran dies overnight and wakes up the following evening as a different type of beast all together.

Jim lies in bed with him as he changes; he watches the last breath that Sebastian Moran takes as a living man. He continues to touch his face until the skin is completely cold, and then he washes the blood from Seb's neck and mouth. It's unreal, the knowledge that this death isn't forever. It makes him slightly nervous; they say you come back different. Jim doesn't want different. He wants Sebastian Moran, just as he always was. He curses himself: should have been more careful, shouldn't have taken that job. Shouldn't have let Sebastian push him aside when they both saw the flash of the needle.

But it's too late now, the deed is done, and the procedure is working. He sees the first breath Sebastian takes as an undead creature, sometime shortly after four in the afternoon. Jim makes note of the date and time-- a second birthday to celebrate. And Jim does love to celebrate birthdays.

In his sleep, he looks exactly the same as he did when he was warm, except paler. His Indian tan has disappeared with his life.

When he opens his eyes, the blue of them is ghastly, ghostly. They are tinged with red spots. It sends a shiver down Jim's spine.

The first thing Sebastian sees is Jim's face. They're lying side by side in bed, and Jim is staring at him with those big dark eyes and baited breath. Sebastian feels different-- cold and sluggish and strange... and hungry. Very hungry. He blinks and Jim smiles at him.

His mind isn't working yet; his thoughts are the roar of a waterfall.

Leaning over, he presses his mouth to Jim's. They kiss slowly and softly until Sebastian nips at Jim's lip just hard enough to draw blood. It tastes better than anything Sebastian has ever had before. With an unfamiliar speed and strength, Sebastian pulls Jim to the center of the bed, pushing him down onto his back and pouncing on him. They grind together, one warm body and one cold, Sebastian all animalistic fierceness. His body takes the long, lean shape of the tiger he has always been as he holds himself over Jim's thin frame. Shoulder blades shift under thin skin and long hands trace scars that are fading impossibly fast.

He groans and growls and makes strange sounds in the back of his throat. He kisses Jim all over, down his jaw, to his neck. The heartbeat is so close, so tempting. The warmth radiating off Jim's skin is nearly intoxicating. He looks up with a question in his eyes. Jim's breath skips for a moment, but then he nods decisively. Sebastian only hesitates for a moment before sinking his teeth in. Jim cries out, but doesn't complain. His hands stroke along the back of Sebastian's neck as Seb licks and sucks and ingests.

Jim stares at the ceiling, finding the sensation uncomfortable, to say the least. The feeling of Sebastian's teeth ripping at him, not sharp enough to puncture cleanly, his cold mouth prying and lapping and worrying at the wounds, the feeling of his blood seeping out, dripping down his neck, warm and cool at the same time. It's... unpleasant. The entire process seems disgusting and unsanitary. When he starts to feel slightly light-headed he digs his nails into Sebastian's scalp, grabs some hair and tears him away.

The wounds don't bleed much, and Jim lies completely still as Sebastian gently cleans the mess of blood from his throat with his fingers and tongue. When he reappears at eye level, his mouth is covered in red and the whites of his eyes have a strange, pink tinge.

"Jim," he says, his first word as a member of the undead population. "Thank you." He steals another languid kiss which leaves Jim breathless. Jim can taste his own blood and tries not to find it entirely repellent. Sebastian nuzzles against his warm body and falls asleep.

Like most newborn things, he spends most of his time sleeping. He spends almost an entire week in and out of sleep, waking up briefly during the night to suckle at Jim's neck. Though it hurts less and less every time, Jim doesn't like it. He tries to adjust his sleep schedule to keep up with Sebastian, but it's hard, and he spends most of his days awake, still, lying next to Sebastian while the new vampire-- _what an ugly word_ , he thinks, _vampire_ \-- sleeps. He buys blackout curtains and takes iron supplements and pets Seb's hair and runs the empire mainly through e-mail.

He wonders what it would have been like if he had just let Sebastian die... and stay dead. He wonders how it would have affected business. He remembers the sick feeling in the pit of his stomach when he thought Sebastian was dying and he moves his mind away from even the thought of no longer having Sebastian by his side... warm or not. It's intolerable to even consider, he decides. _When did I get so attached to this stupid man anyway?_ He wonders as he runs his fingers through Sebastian's soft hair. _When did I get so foolishly sentimental?_

After a week or so, Sebastian starts to be more active at night. His body is still weak, and he bemoans the fact that Jim makes him stay in bed and brings him girls to feed from.

"I don't like having these strangers in the house, Jim," he says one night after they send the simpering girl away. Jim throws the deadbolt and rolls his eyes. Being fed on makes him tired, dizzy, weak, and his thoughts jumbled. It's not conducive to doing business.

"Well, my neck is getting sore," he replies harshly, and that's the last they speak of it.

But it turns out it's impossible to run a business when the leadership team is divided by night and day. The sun sets and Sebastian awakes, full of energy and ready to prowl, to hunt, to shoot... And after a few hours of that, Jim needs some sleep. Jim needs Sebastian around when he makes business deals, and constantly meeting clients in the few hours just after sunset is simply inconvenient for everyone. It's frustrating and it grates at Jim's nerves, already frayed thin.

It's a system that can't work for very long.

\---

It's around one a.m. in the morning on a Tuesday, just as Jim is falling asleep. Sebastian is sitting at his side, reading, and idly picking at his teeth. His eye teeth aren't any longer or sharper than they were before, but he's more aware of them now. Jim gives a snuffle and Seb throws an arm around his shoulders. It's not like it's actually providing any warmth, but the thought is nice.

Wrapped and curled up in four blankets like some malnourished baby animal, Jim nuzzles into Sebastian's shoulder. Leeching heat from Jim gives Sebastian a strange sense of invigoration. His blood tingles when Jim breathes warm air against his bare chest. He's two-months old, by one count, thirty-five years by another.

"When you've got your strength back," Jim says with a sleepy mumble; "When you're ready, you're going to turn me." Sebastian looks at him questioningly; he hadn't even considered the idea. He'd just been starting to get used to the idea of being curled up with warm little Jim forever.

"What? Why?"

"You don't think I'd be so cruel as to let you go through eternity alone, do you? To live and live and live while I don't? You don't think I'm going to allow myself to get old and frail while you stay young and handsome forever?" He smiles. "Of course not. And think what it'll do for business."

He kisses Sebastian's collar bone and dozes off.

"I'll think about it," Seb says to the air. He doesn't feel entirely comfortable with the idea... but he'd hardly considered the idea of his own sudden immortality, and now that he's been confronted with it, the idea of being alone for who knows how long makes him sick.

Or maybe he's just hungry. But he does think about Jim's proposal.

On one hand, an _eternity_ with _Jim Moriarty_. On the other hand, an eternity _with_ Jim Moriarty. He could live forever alone, or live forever with the only man he's ever felt anything close to love for. He could give Jim the gift of eternal life and power... or he could kill him.

Considering it freaks him out, so he puts the thought out of his mind as much as he can.

It takes a little over three months for Sebastian to feel entirely like himself again-- or as close to 'himself' as he'll ever get. Jim sends him out on missions at night, assassinations and reconnaissance. Sebastian's never felt more alert, precise or sharp eyed. He's quieter, quicker, more able. Shots that challenged him before are now simple. He's not much different than he was when he was properly alive, he's just... _better_. Better at everything. And more easily bored. He prowls around their flat while Jim is sleeping. He stalks the streets when he can't stand to be contained. It's the curse of being a vampire, he'll come to learn, being bored.

It's worse for some than others.

\---

After six months, Jim sits him down right after sunset. Sebastian still has sleep in his eyes as Jim pushes a warm mug of blood across the table at him. Having discovered that dead blood is only poisonous to vampires when it's ingested out of a corpse, he's started stocking up-- every time they kill someone, for business or otherwise, Jim makes sure they end up with a few litres in the fridge, carefully labeled with dates and blood type and personal information. This mug is from a young girl whose father owed them money and refused to pay up. 19 years old, played tennis, pink painted fingernails.

Sebastian sips at his mug-- it's the perfect temperature (Jim is so considerate that way), but he can always taste the difference between fresh blood and refridgerated blood. But it's sustenance, and it's not bad. At least it's human blood. He misses the taste of Jim's blood, actually, but he would never say anything to that effect. He's not keen on getting pinched.

"Seb, sweet," Jim says, toying with the cup of tea in front of him. "I think it's time."

"For what?" After another warm sip of tinny blood, Sebastian wonders idly what eating a slice of toast would do to him. He doesn't know much about what vampires can and can't do.

"You know, darling. For... me to be like you." While it's cute that Jim hates using any form of terms traditional to vampirism, and avoids them as much as possible, Sebastian doesn't smile. His heart drops into his stomach. Jim hasn't mentioned anything about this for weeks, and Seb had been hoping to avoid the topic as long as possible. Ideally, indefinitely.

Sebastian swirls his cup. He waffles, trying to think of a way to change the subject and put off this conversation; "Jim..."

"Seb."

"I can't," Sebastian says abruptly, the words erupting from him before Jim can speak. "I can't kill you; I can't do that, Jim. I can't drain you dry and then _hope_ that you come back."

"But--"

"I know you did that with me. I know was dead, completely dead for nine hours. I know that. But I _just can't_ , Jim. I was dying then, there was nothing to lose. This is different. What if it doesn't work?" A thin film is starting to congeal on the surface of his mug of blood.

"It will," Jim says. His voice is low and serious. His knuckles are white from where he's gripping his mug.

"You can't just _decide_ that it'll work, Jim, that's not how--"

"IT WILL," He screams, slamming his tea cup down. One of his outbursts, perfectly normal for Jim, but Sebastian jumps a little anyway. He always does. After that second of flaring anger, Jim calms down abruptly, and just breathes for a moment. "It will work," he says. He looks up at Seb's pale face. "I trust you, Seb. You wouldn't let anything go wrong."

With a sigh, Sebastian buries his face in his hands. He doesn't get headaches anymore, but he thinks if he was still warm his head would be pounding. There's no arguing with Jim. Even if he explains that it's not up to him if the turning works, that sometimes it just _doesn't happen_... that wouldn't dissuade Jim Moriarty. He's decided, and so that's the end of it.

"Fine," Sebastian finally accedes, shaking his head. "Fine." Jim's face lights up with a mixture of excitement, joy, and nervous energy.

"Tonight?" He smiles-- one of his childish, toothy grins. A laugh escapes from him, tinged with something miserable underneath.

"Sure," Seb agrees. He feels a little sick and swallows down the rest of his blood. Jim picks at the edge of the table.

"Great." They sit silently for a moment. Jim stands and wanders through the kitchen, touching everything. He opens the fridge and then closes it. He opens it again. Sebastian stands up and slinks over to stand behind him. He wraps his arms around Jim's stomach, inhaling apprehension mingled in with Jim's excitement. He's so warm, so so warm. _I'll miss this_ , Sebastian thinks, stooping to place his chin at the point where Jim's shoulder meets his neck.

The fridge is half full of milk and butter and Chinese takeaway, and half full of blood in carefully labeled litre jugs.

Sebastian misses Chinese takeaway.

Jim sighs; "I'll see you in the bedroom. When you're ready."

He saunters off, a strange skip in his step.

Sebastian sits back down at the table and picks at his teeth for ten minutes. There is nothing he wanted to do less this evening than kill his only friend. But there's no avoiding it. He knows that. It's what Jim wants. Finally, he makes his way out of the kitchen and down the hall.

Jim is sitting on the edge of the bed, his feet swinging idly, waiting patiently. When he sees Sebastian come through the doorway, he gives a flickering, twisting smile. Sebastian prowls over him, easing him down onto the mattress, forcing a sexy intimacy in an attempt to squash the nervous terror pooling in his stomach, and that he's sure is pooling in Jim's too. Jim stares at him with his big eyes, looking young and excited and nearly innocent. Sebastian kisses him.

"Are you sure?" He whispers. Jim looks up at him for a long moment, then laughs.

"I'm not some virgin girl, Seb," he drawls. His eyes flicker around the room. His voice trembles just slightly; nervousness, Sebastian thinks, or fear. "Of course I'm sure." He takes a swipe and smacks Sebastian across the cheek. "Now get on with it."

They kiss. Jim holds onto Sebastian's neck desperately, digging fingernails into skin. Breathing hard, shaking, Jim drags his teeth along Sebastian's ear; "Go ahead."

Sebastian takes a deep, cool breath and sinks his teeth in. There's a small cry, and then Jim goes completely silent. He holds Sebastian firmly against his throat, fingers wrapped tightly in his hair.

Sebastian drinks. Jim's blood tastes exactly how he remembered, sweet and sharp and lovely. But at the end of the day, blood is blood, and it's metallic and being a vampire doesn't make blood taste any different, really. He drinks until Jim starts to shake. He stops to breathe, releasing Jim's throat with a gasp, and looks up. His little victim is staring at the ceiling, his eyes half closed and his face pale. He swallows and Sebastian wipes a wet drip from the corner of Jim's eye.

"Okay?" Seb asks. Jim nods slowly. "Almost there." And he bites back down. He feels the moment when Jim's heart starts to really struggle. He feels the moment when Jim drifts nearly out of consciousness. And then he stops. 

He rips open his wrist and holds it to Jim's lips. There's no response for a moment, and Sebastian panics, thinking he's gone too far. With a jolt, Jim comes back to life, as it were, and clasps onto Sebastian's wrist, hard. It's hard to decide the moment to cut him off, but once Sebastian starts to feel drained he knows that's quite enough. Jim's eyes flutter open momentarily, paler than usual, unfocused, the brown of them weak. It looks like he wants to speak, but Sebastian shushes him with a finger against his lips. Covered in blood like he is, Sebastian isn't sure Jim has ever looked more beautiful.

"Go to sleep, Jim," he whispers, pulling him into his arms. Closing his eyes, Jim leans against Sebastian's shoulder.

It's absolutely silent as Sebastian licks the blood off Jim's face. He holds on until Jim goes completely still.

Now he has to simply wait and see.

While Jim is-- and Sebastian hates to say this, to even think it makes his stomach turn over-- dead, Seb warms up more blood for himself out of the fridge, cleans out all the food, and runs some errands to prepare for when Jim comes back. Because he's sure Jim will come back. He looks in on the still body laying in bed; there's a frightening, familiar jauntiness to his limbs that only truly dead things have. _Jim will come back_ , Sebastian thinks as he turns away with a shudder. The alternative is unimaginable.

He sleeps through the day with a corpse in his arms.

When he wakes up, Jim is already awake. His eyes are frightening-- the brown of his irises are so pale they almost look yellow. He's just staring, quietly, paitently.

"Hello you," Sebastian leans in and plants a little kiss on Jim's nose. His skin is cold, and while he knew that would be the case, it's still surprising. "Welcome back." Jim gives a little growl and pinches his arm. Seb smiles and wriggles out of bed.

"I brought you something," He says with a gesture. Weakly, Jim rolls over and catches sight of Sebastian's gift-- a girl tied to a chair in the corner of the room. "I'm sure you must be hungry." A glint flashes in Jim's eyes. He smiles, and his teeth actually are just slightly sharper. _Well,_ Sebastian thinks, _every one changes afterall. Some just change more than others_. The Jim who came back was indeed different from the Jim who went away. The teeth are just the first clue.

The girl gives a wiggle and a little squeak. Sebastian drags her over so Jim can get a good look.

"Hooper," Jim growls. Unable to help himself, Sebastian breaks into a grin. He's brought Molly Hooper, hospital mouse, for Jim's first meal. It wasn't difficult.

"Thought we'd send Mr. Holmes a little message, let him know what he's up against now." Molly squeaks again. Sebastian can't help but laugh. "Shut up, Hooper. I won't let him eat you up." This does nothing to relax her. Sebastian helps Jim sit up and slide out of bed onto Molly's lap. It's cute, actually, seeing Jim curled up on top of that little girl. He nuzzles against her throat and traces her collarbones. His touch is deceptively light, and Sebastian mirrors this gentleness, running his fingers through Molly's hair. She really is mousey, from head to toe.

He pulls her hair, forcing her head back, and Jim sinks his teeth in. Molly cries and wriggles and Sebastian looks into her eyes. Waiting for the moment that she starts to get woozy, his smile grows. Her eyelids flicker, at which point he waits another minute and then pulls Jim off. And it takes pulling to get Jim to leave the poor girl alone. She's crying. Jim is covered in blood, and Sebastian leans over the sobbing girl to press a kiss to his boss' lips. Tasting Molly's blood, he gives a little growl and swipes his tongue across Jim's teeth. With a funny little noise that's almost a yawn, Jim wipes his mouth on Sebastian's cheek and flings his arms around his makers neck.

After tucking Jim into bed, where the little man curls up and immediately falls asleep, still pink around the mouth, Sebastian takes Molly Hooper home. He's not worried that she'll remember where they live-- she's hardly conscious when they leave the flat, after all. And if she does remember... well, there's no real harm to be had there. Dropping her off in front of her flat, he gives her his toothiest smile and says, "Be sure to tell all your friends about us. Let Sherlock know what trouble he's in. "

He hadn't met her before this. Just heard all the stories from Jim. He hopes he made a good first impression.

As he drives off, he glances into the rear-view mirror for one last look-- Little Molly Hooper, standing on the curb in the dark, pre-dawn hours, her face drained and spattered with smears of her own blood.

Lovely girl.

\---

They start a new version of their lives together as gentleman criminals, now vampires, running their empire nearly entirely during the night. Jim buys new suits to highlight the new color of his eyes and re-arranges their sitting room so clients can call on them at the house. "Just like the consulting detective," he says with a dark giggle when Sebastian complains about having anyone know where they live, as if that actually answers anything. Even more like the _consulting detective_ Jim starts wearing high collared coats and scarves. He says it's to hide the lingering bite marks, but Sebastian suspects it's more to do with his love of the dramatic than any sense of embarrassment. Sebastian doesn't have any scars anymore, not even the stripes on his chest where the tiger got him; he doubts Jim has any little bite marks to hide, but he doesn't question Jim's vanity.

Their first few weeks involve a lot of readjustment. While Jim sleeps and makes phone calls and sleeps and writes out long sets of instructions, Sebastian runs the business and does a series of experiments on how long he can stay awake and how long he can stand to be in the sun-- the answers being eighty-four hours before his ears start to bleed, though for the last ten hours of that he's exhausted to the point of collapse, and half an hour in direct sunlight before it starts to give him blisters, which heal up with a good day's sleep. He can stand almost an entire hour in diffused light, which works out perfectly if business ever requires being done in the daylight. He finds it makes him all the more intimidating to their less reliable business associates. Show up in one office at noon with your teeth out, and no one will ever think that your new status as undead makes you vulnerable ever again.

He's always been a creature of the sun, sweating in deserts and under oppressive Indian heat. Seems a little case of vampirism wasn't going to keep him out of his natural element.

After a few months, they discover that Jim's tolerance for sunlight is much less than Sebastian's, when he starts to burn after ten minutes at dawn. Jim stares silently at the angry red patch on his hand which quickly grows in size. When the skin cracks open, Jim hisses and Sebastian notices. With a tut of worry and annoyance, he ushers Jim back indoors. Sitting quietly while Sebastian bandages the burn, Jim sips at a glass of blood and frowns. "This is why you do the dirty work, I suppose," he says after a while. Sebastian laughs. It's true.

"You should've said something," he whispers gently as he plants a little kiss on the bandage. Jim shrugs and Sebastian sends him off to bed.

They say you come back different and Jim Moriarty _is_ different. Where Sebastian remained almost entirely the same, just slightly paler and much quicker, Jim became an ephemeral ghoul, pale, quiet and frightening. Sebastian Moran became a better hunter, and Jim Moriarty became a better villain. His eyes never get entirely dark again, no matter how much he feeds, and his laugh becomes more menacing and less genuine. He speaks less and moves less, except for the strange oscillation of his head, which has always been a tic of his, and when juxtaposed with otherwise complete stillness becomes more noticeable and far more creepy. Sebastian has noticed their clients shiver in discomfort more than once. Sebastian's gifts as a vampire amount to hugely improved senses; Jim can blend into shadows and read people's feelings and sees things in his dreams. He's always been extraordinary. This is just further proof.

While he was dead, something in him cracked, that much is obvious. Jim is madder, somehow, if that were possible, and despite an increased taste for getting his hands dirty, his schemes and plans become more efficient and concise. Less need for dirty hands at all. No loose ends ever, no questions, not a single gap in the plan. Nothing left to luck. Not to say his plans were ever anything but tidy before his transformation, but now there's a sterile cleanliness about it all. Everything works out perfectly. Almost too perfectly. It makes Sebastian generally nervous, how many steps ahead Jim can think.

His ability to inflict misery from a distance is impressive, but worse is his ability to inflict misery up close. He's always had a nasty streak, but his vampire strength means that tearing out eyes and tongues with his bare hands is easy. His cruelty and coldness became inhuman with the onset of his vampiric gifts.

Maybe it should bother him, Sebastian sometimes thinks, but then again, Jim's not human any more. And then Sebastian doesn't have as much dirty work to do.

But in the end, sad but true, it all boils down to the fact that Jim gets bored more easily. No puzzle is enough, no game is as challenging as it once was or should be. He mopes most nights and sleeps more than Sebastian thinks is healthy. He rarely truly laughs anymore, save for the few manic cackles, and his self-destructive tendencies rocket through the roof. More than once Sebastian has come home to find him soaking in holy water or surrounded in garlic, testing legends that could prove fatal. He thought managing Jim's suicidal fits was difficult before, but then Jim wore a silver backed watch for a week before Sebastian noticed the festering wound on his wrist. Jim is more creative with his slow suicides now.

The only time Jim ever really perks up anymore is when Sherlock Holmes comes sniffing around. Sherlock Holmes sticks his nose into their business, and Jim's blood thrills. He tingles with excitement and a lively energy which has become rare in him. Even when they're sleeping, it's like Jim can sense Sherlock's meddling. He shocks awake during the day, eyes fixed on the ceiling and breathing hard. He dreams fragments of Holmes' life more often than anything else.

Sebastian doesn't dream at all. When he lies awake, it's because he's worried. He worries what will happen when Sherlock gets his first gray hair. He worries what Jim will do if Sherlock Holmes ever retires. Sebastian worries what will happen when they live for centuries, but Sherlock Holmes does not. He's not stupid; he knows Sebastian Moran isn't enough for Jim Moriarty. Never was, never will be. Never could be.

Sebastian tries not to be jealous. When they sleep, it's Sebastian that Jim clings to, after all, not Sherlock Holmes. It's Sebastian that Jim drains people for; it's Sebastian who he kisses and Sebastian who kisses back. It's Sebastian who Jim couldn't allow to die. It's Sebastian who Jim turned for. That must count for something, he tells himself. It must.

It's a useless train of thought, though; he doesn't think they'll survive their first century anyway. Sooner or later, Jim will bore himself to literal death, and without Jim...

He'll die.


End file.
